


pumpkin soup with three spoons

by razbliuto



Category: One Piece
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Parent Dracule Mihawk, Perona And Roronoa Zoro Are Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28760985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/razbliuto/pseuds/razbliuto
Summary: Damn that Bartholomew Kuma! Perona tells herself she's going to haul ass back to Thriller Bark immediately. (She hangs around the castle for two more years.)— Pastel Goth Family, and the place they briefly call a home.
Relationships: Dracule Mihawk & Perona, Dracule Mihawk & Perona & Roronoa Zoro, Perona & Roronoa Zoro
Comments: 28
Kudos: 176





	pumpkin soup with three spoons

* * *

_pumpkin soup with three spoons_

* * *

A ghost princess and an angry swordsman sit down to dinner made by the Warlord Dracule Mihawk in his castle where vampires go to die.

No, it's not a joke.

He flaunts his nasty old-man chest with dazzling indifference. Perona solemnly informs him that he is too old to be half-naked, and receives long-suffering silence. Zoro laughs so hard one of his stitches rip. He passes out in his plate of spaghetti.

Perona spends the rest of the night intermittently sewing him up and smacking him with a pillow for being such an idiot.

"Hey," he rattles, one finger held up in objection, "it's your fault for making me laugh."

"I will never understand how did you and your stupid crew ever managed to survive the Grand Line."

"Our doctor is way better than you, and he's a reindeer."

Perona responds by shooting him with a Negative Hollow.

"Interesting." Mihawk leans around her, inspecting the mumbling mosshead. "This is the power that made you a commander of Gecko Moria's army?"

"Th-that's right! And d-don't you forget it!" Perona stutters, floating up in delight. Perhaps Dracule Mihawk, with his gothic energy and black-as-the-onyx-night sword, is not such a withering buffoon after all. Perhaps they can be _dark accomplices._

Zoro's eyes bulge with the effort not to call himself a piece of lint floating around with no purpose in life. He fails.

"The world's next greatest swordsman," Mihawk observes, and walks away. Perona takes pity and lets the Hollow fade.

Zoro grabs her wrist immediately. "I'll kill you."

She bonks him with the pillow again and makes hurried plans to leave.

* * *

The castle is big, and her occupants have many duties.

Kuraigana is an autumn island, with short, mild summers and long, dark winters. Best to grow tomato, squash, and pumpkin. It's a self-sustaining land, just like Thriller Bark. Mihawk barks at Perona and Zoro that they'll only eat if they do their share of the work.

Perona sweats and sulks and yells for her zombies to come help, only none do, _obviously_ , so she's angrily puffing as she digs her hoe in the dirt. Damn that Bartholomew Kuma. Her hands were meant for petting fuzzy bears, not manual labor.

Zoro, however, is the best at laboring. Zoro speedily tills the ground. He plants a whole field of vegetables before Perona even finishes spreading her mulch. She sags against her spade, whining. The Kuraigana sunlight is pale and thin, but she's shriveling up beneath its watery glare. Zoro is treating this like training, holding three watering cans as he runs to and fro the field. She wants to kick him.

After a sweaty morning of weeding, Perona throws down her spade and stupid farmer's hat. This is outrageous. This is an attack on her humanity. She's _had it_. She is going to leave at once!

Then she sees the glass pitcher. Perona and Zoro inspect it side-by-side, arms crossed, heads tilted in the same direction.

"Try it," Zoro urges.

"You try it first," she hisses. "I am not being assassinated by a Warlord today."

"Ha! Afraid of a little drink?"

"What about you, next-greatest-swordsman?"

"Fine," he grunts. "Same time?"

They nod together, and slam back a mouthful. Perona freezes. Zoro swallows hard.

"It's… lemonade," he says with an expression that's either horror or awe.

"It's _good_ ," Perona whispers back, eyes sparkling.

They squint at each other, then turn to the vampiric figure digging up onions at the other end of the field, dressed in rubber boots, gardening gloves, and a wide-brimmed hat.

* * *

They train often, from sunrise to sundown. Perona plops her chin on her hands, observing the behaviors of the male ape.

(She isn't talking about the baboons.)

One of them is going to kill each other someday, and wouldn't it be hilarious to watch? The curiosity gets the better of her. _Tomorrow_ , she thinks, _I'll leave tomorrow. Once the mosshead dies (of course it will be the mosshead), I'll make fun of his corpse and then go._

She is gifted the wondrous job of bandaging the mosshead when he comes limping back inside. Or worse: when he's still laying face-down on the castle grounds, and refuses to answer her cajoles to _please get up I can't drag your ugly muscle body inside with my delicate tiny hands_ with more than Neanderthal-esque grunts.

She's always found Zoro mildly irritating, but it's so much worse when he _sulks_.

After one such occasion, she prods his immobile chest with the point of her parasol. "Are you, like, finally dead, or what?"

She receives a grunt and barely stops herself from prodding his shoulder, where blood is gushing out with particular ferocity. A part of her can't believe this idiot is actually _real_. She doesn't know why he's going this far, and even though it's amusing entertainment, she still can't wrap her head around it. "You could just _stop_ , you imbecile. He's Dracule Mihawk! You can't possibly think you'll win against him."

Zoro lets out a quiet breath. Her pink boot nudges the arm that's splayed over his chest. It flops loosely on the ground without resistance.

 _Damn that Bartholomew Kuma_ , Perona thinks. "Is this really that important?" she asks.

"Yeah."

"I don't get it."

He keeps looking up at the stars. "You don't have to."

She squats beside him with a first-aid kid that she's beginning to carry everywhere nowadays, and starts cleaning his wounds. He winces slightly when she swipes at them with alcohol pads.

"This is when you thank me, you oaf," Perona huffs.

He lowers his head to inspect her work. Then, from the beneath green hair and winking earrings comes a mumbled, "Thanks."

* * *

Yoru. The Greatest Black Blade, the Bringer of a Thousand Nights. Moria-sama's had his treacherous eye on Mihawk for a long time, wanted to rip that famous shadow right out from under his bones. Her master used to snicker and scheme when he came back from his Warlord meetings.

She studies her reflection in that deep, inky obsidian. A flare of pink hair, the whites of her round eyes. The ornate hilt gleams with dark rubies. If Perona didn't already love the cobwebbed mirrors in this manor, Yoru's reflection would be her favorite place to admire herself.

A sword this famous must have many stories. "What happened?" Perona asks. "Was there a woman involved? A grisly, ghastly, sordid tale of vengeance?"

"What," grumps the irritable man reading on his armchair.

He's rude and cranky and old and weird. So of course that means she has to make fun of him. "The thing that turned you into… well…" She waves at all of him.

"A long tale."

She waits.

Mihawk turns a page in his book. "I was a boy, no older than Roronoa. I have fought many battles in my life."

That's all. He doesn't expand. Figures. Perona pouts, then nudges a bit more. "Did you win?"

"I'm sitting here, aren't I?"

"That doesn't mean much," she scoffs, going back to Yoru, "when I've seen the dead stand up many times before."

In the reflection, over her shoulder, she sees Dracule Mihawk look up from his book with a thoughtful expression. Perona eyes him back. He'd make a good zombie. He's definitely pasty enough for it. And he's brainless enough to assume she has the depths of a shallow grave. Hmph. Whatever. She'll sail away at first daybreak tomorrow, and then he'll see.

* * *

Perona leaves her body behind and explores the castle.

She's only doing this because she's a little curious, okay? She'll be leaving this depressing, gloomy, cobweb-infested, gorgeous, _utterly perfect_ place of residence before long anyway. She was inspecting the abandoned boats molding on the coast, before getting bored and floating back to the castle. She has the navigational skills, but she'd still have to figure out how to man a large ship on her own, and _ugh_ , planning a getaway is hard work…

She floats through the corridors, singing her favorite funeral hymns. Somewhere outside, a murder of ravens screech in harmony. This miserable cold castle would've been perfect if not for this minor detail. If only those two sword-idiots also had a penchant for tea service or foot massages…

Ah. Speak of the mosshead.

"Have you been here the whole time?" Perona kicks at the lump curled-up on the floor. "Do you know how many potatoes I've had to dig up on my own? I'm up to my damn ears in tubers! Oi, how long have you been lost? It's been days since I last saw you."

Zoro looks beseechingly at his new boyfriend, the wall, for a magical appearance of a door. "I ain't lost," he grouses weakly. "I've been… meditating."

She rolls her eyes. "Come on, I'll show you the way back."

"Mrgh."

"There's more rum in the kitchen, you big lug."

Zoro silently gets up from the floor and shuffles after her.

"Ahhh Moria-sama! Hogback! Absalom! If only you could see how pitiable your Ghost Princess is now!" Perona laments as they wend their way through the castle. Her voice rings across shadowed paintings and dusty chandeliers with the unlit candles half-rotted away.

Zoro slouches along. She composes a whole operatic aria about the wonderfulness of Thriller Bark before he mutters, "The lion on your crew."

"Hm? Absalom?"

"He hurt my navigator. He hurt Nami in a bad way."

Perona hesitates. An instant defense doesn't rise from her mouth. "We're pirates. It happens."

His voice is rougher than usual. "It's fucked up."

"Yes," she agrees. "But they're family, so I couldn't do anything about it. Your navigator should've been stronger."

His hands are on his swords and she thinks, for a moment, he might truly kill her. " _You_ —"

"Absalom wanted me to be his wife, once, before he discovered how strong I was." Perona's voice is dreamy, hands clasped behind her back. "Hogback tried to make me like Cindry, because he can't resist ruining cute girls. Sometimes you have to show them you'll fight back, and then they leave you alone."

Zoro stops in his path. Perona looks back.

"It happens," she repeats, floating in a gentle curve. "It's what family does."

"No. No, it's really not."

"Perhaps not in the outside world," she allows, twining fingers through her long twintails. "Thriller Bark is different—was different. But Moria-sama was always good to me. Always. It makes up for everything else."

"That ain't family." He's looking at her like _she's_ the odd one. The freak.

Perona lands on her feet, ghostly platform boots soundless against the stone floor. "Don't you dare lecture me on what family is," she bites back, turning away with a flounce. Her fists are clenched tight, and she chews on the nail of her thumb, muttering, "What would an oaf know, anyway."

Mihawk is waiting for them—well, Zoro, really—in the hall, golden-eyed and impatient. He takes up Yoru with a sweep of his arm. "And here I thought you'd run away, boy. Come. I have to make up for a full week of not beating you miserably into the ground."

"I'm gettin' food first." Zoro walks right past him, motioning for Perona to follow. Mihawk blinks.

She returns to her body, which is sleeping on a plush armchair, and snaps, "Oh, whatever! I'm going back to Thriller Bark right now!"

Perona's stomach grumbles. She grumbles back at it. Then she stalks down to the kitchen after the mosshead, complaining all the way.

The wild rice has been harvested and cooked. Zoro shows her how to roll the rice into little round balls, with bits of salted salmon and pickled plums stuffed inside. His rice balls come out perfect. Hers are lopsided, ugly, not cute at all. Perona resists throwing a tantrum and sulkily bites into them. The salmon's a little dry and the plums are so sour and flavorful that she pinches her eyes shut.

"How's that? It's called onigiri. It's common where I come from, in East Blue."

"It's… _fine_ ," she says grudgingly. Her zombies could've made it better, the ones that Moria stuffed with the shadows of proper chefs. Better, objectively—in all the ways that matter to anyone with a brain.

Zoro grins, and it's so genuine she stares. "I'll take it."

He stands with a burp and pats her on the shoulder. Perona remembers too late to flick his hand away, and when she does, he's already cleaning up and yelling at Mihawk to prepare for death. Mihawk, who has been watching them from the doorway for a while now, merely snorts and beckons.

When they are gone, Perona touches a grain of rice caught on her lip and pushes it in between her teeth. She savors the humble taste in a way she's not sure she's ever done before.

* * *

"I'm tagging in," Perona announces, stepping out of her body. "Why don't we fight together?"

"Hell no," Zoro snorts, and she expects him to belittle her combat abilities. It is pleasantly surprising, then, when he says, "Victory means nothing if I receive help."

She spins whimsically, Hollows appearing where she spreads her hands. "I'm not saying we'll win against the freakishly strong Warlord," Perona tuts, as though Mihawk is not standing ten feet away. "But I bet we can make the bastard stumble. And wouldn't that be a funny sight?"

Zoro crooks his brow, intrigued.

"You are welcome to it." Mihawk brandishes the great Yoru. "On your guard."

Perona is twenty-three, a ghost princess, an expert Devil Fruit user, and has spent the better part of her life fighting as a commander for the Warlord Gecko Moria, Captain of Thriller Bark. She once looked Bartholomew Kuma in the eye and said, _Fuck you, I'll win._ She's not afraid of Dracule Mihawk. She's seen him in all-black silk pajamas. He wears velvet slippers to bed.

They begin; Zoro with his three swords like tiger claws, Perona with her pink parasol and plump crown, an army of ghosts beside her. She swoops through the air, turns twenty-feet-tall, lights up the sky with explosions.

He can't harm her astral-body, which is great because Perona would've lost her head about five times in quick succession. Flying high until she's at long range, she points her parasol like a martial commander and sends a Toku Hollow to devour Mihawk and explode. Zoro follows up with a myriad of slashes. It's quite novel, fighting alongside the mosshead. In another life, they might've made a good team.

Mihawk is still standing. No matter how hard Zoro cuts or how many explodey ghosts Perona sends, he defends himself with flawless precision. Zoro sweats over his swords, clenches his jaw tight. Perona can't feel exhaustion in her spirit-body, but somehow she _does_ , just looking at him.

She can go back to her body and laugh at the one-sided slaughter on the sidelines. She can, but—

But then Mihawk lunges, and Perona flies between him and Zoro, throwing a Negative Hollow at the Warlord. The ghost glances off his pasty-ass chest and goes tumbling into the air with a mournful, " _Noooo_ …"

Perona snarls in disappointment, but she thinks she glimpses the faintest trace of approval on Mihawk's stone face.

He sheathes Yoru. "It's time we discuss Haki."

Later, Zoro stomps up to Perona. She's on the roof of the castle, lounging on a folding chair in a moth-eaten funeral dress. The long sleeves and high collar are black lace. She's scattered dead rose petals all over. For the atmosphere, you know.

"I'm moonbathing, you brute," she says. "Get out of my gloom."

"Hit me with a Negative Hollow."

Perona looks over her dark-tinted glasses. "Are you pea-brained."

Zoro sits on his knees. "Please."

For the thousandth time, she curses Bartholomew Kuma for sending her here, to this beautifully grim place and its infuriating inhabitants. He raises his head, looks at her with raw steel and impossible stubbornness.

She plants her boots on the ground, cracks her knuckles. "You asked for this, Roronoa."

Morning comes, and Perona hasn't slept a wink. They're both cold and shivering and hoarse from yelling at each other. They stumble down the stairs, elbowing each other and bickering over something stupid and petty. All her life, she's been the youngest on Thriller Bark—the blossom amongst grim old spiders, Hogback once described with a leer. But Zoro's four years younger than her, and she's never had _this_ kind of relationship before. She doesn't even know what to call it.

There's a fresh batch of tea waiting for them in the kitchen, the pot still steaming. Zoro marches right to the alcohol stores.

"Hey! No rum until you master Haki," Perona reminds with a good dose of spiteful glee. Mihawk's order is the funniest damn thing.

He groans.

"Ooo, how fragrant. Is this… _apple cinnamon_?"

He groans louder.

* * *

The island of Kuraigana feels like home, in some ways. In other ways, it still doesn't.

Autumn comes and goes, winter blooms into spring. Which, on Kuraigana, just means a few more hours of misty daylight than usual.

She can go back to Thriller Bark anytime. All she has to do is rummage through the ship graveyard for something suitable. But something always stops her: the late winter storms, the pretty black roses she's hoping to grow into a whole garden, the onigiri Zoro promised they'd make again…

She'll head back to Thriller Bark later. She will, she will.

As the year passes, Perona lets her hair grow out and takes it out of its pigtails, combs it into long, smooth pink waves. She braids a few strands of it. She dolls herself up, even though there's no cute zombies around to appreciate her. Only those two big lugs who have no respect for her delicate beauty.

"Keep your preening away from our training grounds," Mihawk commands. Zoro nods fiercely.

"If you ask nicely, I'd braid your hair, too," Perona sniffs, and proceeds to paint her toenails.

Mihawk has a remarkably gothic fashion sense, and Perona approves very much. She hopes he'll be okay with her taking some of his shirts and hemming them to suit her. They're all collecting dust in the many wardrobes, anyway. She admires herself in the mirror, then yells for Zoro to get in here so she can have a fashion show. His only job is to clap, which he does even though his arms are still aching with new scars.

The greatest swordsman in the world surprisingly acquiesces to this wardrobe onslaught without a word. In fact, if she didn't know any better, she'd think he approved of how she wielded her blade (the fabric scissors). Perona wakes up one day and finds a gift outside her room. In the mirror, she adjusts the perch of her new, black-velvet top hat and smiles at herself.

Summer arrives. The moss around the castle bows to the humidity, pungent with asphodels and grey fungi. She'll leave soon. She will. It's just, she really wants to perfect her pumpkin soup recipe. Thriller Bark's zombies have all been salted and exorcised, so she'd have to plant a new harvest on her own, and it's just _easier_ to stay. For the time being, of course.

Zoro excitedly shows her his progress with Armament and Perona feels a semblance of relief. Her only medical knowledge comes from watching Hogback suture up corpses or skimming whatever macabre surgical book that catches her interest. (She is a remarkably intelligent girl, despite what others may think when they see her frills and bows.) She's always been good at sewing her own clothes, so she becomes accustomed to sewing up Zoro. Now, she has less to worry about.

(Not that she was worrying in the first place. She just—oh, shut up.)

He rips out pages from dusty books in the library and folds her paper things. Cranes, frogs, tigers, little stars. He thrusts them in her hands one day, and Perona holds them, peering at the collection of paper animals with huge eyes. The corners are bent oddly, the paper rumpled with sweat, as if he had spent time painstakingly crafting them.

"It's so ugly," she says, incredibly touched.

His cheeks go red. Zoro snarls at her to give 'em back.

She doesn't. She tucks them away in her room, decorating her nightstand with his ugly little paper monstrosities. It's his way of saying thank you, she knows. And monstrosities are the cutest things ever. Perona loves them so much.

One morning, she's out picking herbs. She's fixed her crown to the top of her big farmer's hat and added a pink bow on the side. She has on a sensible white button-up and a less sensible but still very cute black skirt with little crosses on them, and her shockingly cool pink vampire bat tattoo is visible on her upper arm. Why, she's looking wretchedly glamorous! Sinisterly sepulchral! None else can dare to match—

Ah.

The Royal Warlord Dracule Mihawk is also out this morning. He's picking chestnuts in his wicker basket, like a pallid farmer vampire who got lost on the way to the Samhain store. They stare at each other for a moment. Perona supposes she looks like she got lost on the way to the gothic funeral rave. Perhaps in another life they might've been going to the same one, though undoubtedly she'd wrinkle her nose at meeting this cranky old sword weirdo again.

"Looking for herbs for dinner tonight," she says, rolling her parasol over her shoulder and floating by.

They are, apparently, going the same way.

Mihawk carries on, impassive as always. His rubber boots squeak a little, on the dirt that's wet with morning dew. "Roronoa caught fresh fish this morning."

"For more onigiri." Perona glances at him sulkily. How can one vitamin D-deprived man look so gothically depressed? She grudgingly admits he's even better at it than her. He must teach her his ways sometime. "We'll make some for you, too," she adds.

"I never asked," Mihawk returns.

For want of anything better to do, Perona rambles about Thriller Bark. But he's heard it all already, and lately thinking about her old home makes her feel the sad type of gloomy, so she diverts to makeup. And dresses. And ghosts. And spooky romantic stories about skeleton lovers and betrayed corpse brides she's been making up in her head since she was, like, five. If that pathetic, girl-snatching Absalom were here, he'd call her stories dumb. Hogback would call her boring, and Cindry would stack her plates, and all the zombies of Thriller Bark would continue their endless pirouetting dance of death, one that no one ever escaped from.

Perona talks and spins tales and sings, and throughout it all Mihawk quietly picks his chestnuts, nods when it is appropriate, and catches her hand when she nearly slips crossing a log. Using the tip of her parasol, she digs up wild bracken and fiddlehead ferns, the plants Mihawk taught her and Zoro to look out for (it was especially important the day they came back with armfuls of poisonous mushrooms and water hemlock, beaming and waiting for Mihawk to congratulate them).

When she finishes her last grimsome story, Mihawk fills the silence with a grave, "The banshee deserved a better suitor, even in death."

Perona hadn't expected him to listen, not really. She smiles so hard no one would ever mistake her for a gothic funeral rave attendee, then coughs and says haughtily, as though they're two witches gossiping over tea, "So true, so true, I know."

On their way back to the castle, they bump into two little bears rolling clumsily out of the bushes, brown and plump and entranced by the plume on Mihawk's hat. Perona clasps her hands together, eyes glimmering. Mihawk valiantly pretends to ignore her, sighs, then gestures at the bears to follow. Inside the castle, she names one Beary and one Bearie.

Zoro comes stomping in from training, shirtless with his gross ogre chest out. He points at the bears. "Emergency rations? Damn, we out of food already?"

"Don't you dare!" Perona shrieks, pelting ghosts after him and turning the front hall into impromptu sparring terrain. Zoro cackles as he boots her ghosts away with his big dumb feet. She jabs her parasol up his nose. Mihawk hands over his hat and cape to the bears, and they waddle away to hang them up.

The island of Kuraigana feels like home, in some ways. In other ways, it feels like something more.

* * *

"So," Zoro says, "my depth perception is shot."

She's watching him look at himself in one of her mirrors. A long, bloody scar is scabbing over his left eye.

"At least you look like a proper pirate."

"Says the dork wearing the giant pink ribbons."

"It's _cute_ , and don't make fun of my ribbons." Perona supposes that is not a nice thing to say to a guy who is dealing with a fifty percent decrease in vision. She tries, "It's better than losing an arm?"

He's pretty bad at being a one-eyed swordsman, waving his katana around like a newborn colt trying to walk. His footwork is clumsy and there's hesitation in his movements like nothing she's ever seen before. Still, the stubborn steel in his eyes— _eye, singular_ —never wavers. "I could lose both eyes, both arms, both legs. Wouldn't stop me. Still got my mouth, don't I?"

"You're so dumb," Perona says fondly. Zoro glares, looking pretty stupid with one eye in her opinion, and tries to elbow her. He misses the first two times, but she waits patiently until his mark lands. She'll let him get away with it, just this time.

Zoro looks at his reflection again, touches the scar slicing through his eyelid. Bearie and Beary run around carrying disinfectant that's probably decades expired by now. Stained bandages lie crumpled atop her vanity, around the gritty mascara wands and bottles of graveyard-rose perfume. (There's an exceptional amount of makeup stored away in this castle, either by past occupants or Mihawk himself—she never asks, only because she'd be disappointed if it's not the option she prefers.)

"I'll defeat Hawkeyes," Zoro says quietly.

And Perona knows she isn't really supposed to hear, it's a reminder of a promise, it's what all annoying swordsmen dramatically whisper to themselves, but she snorts, "Well, yeah," and finds Zoro's startled expression reflected on her own. " _Ugh_ ," she continues, with added force, "you've been saying it for so long, I just want it to be over so you can finally shut up."

The resulting silence embarrasses them both.

He looks away, scratching his head. "Can't believe I found my number one fan on this island."

She shoots him with a Negative Hollow. It bounces off his chest.

Zoro flexes his Armament with a smirk. "Heh— _ow_!"

Perona flips another comb around her fingers. He really does need to work on his depth perception.

* * *

Summer slips to long, dreary, moonlit autumn again. Zoro continues to train. Sometimes they sit together in the cemetery on foggy mornings, and he tells her about his swords. Once, he asks her about her ghosts. If they were real people, like the zombies' shadows were once real people. If she could call specific ghosts. When Perona (because she's also an orphan, and she _understood that_ ) asks who, he goes quiet, grips Wado Ichimonji tight, and says nothing more.

Winter comes, and Perona makes snow devils on the fresh fallen white. Mihawk goes ice fishing with one hand, fending off Zoro with his other. The turn of the year comes. In spring, they till the soil, plant the field with tomatoes and squash and turnips. Mihawk makes thick, hearty cocido stew. They hang laundry outside the castle, with Beary and Bearie's help. The Humandrills sneak away a few of Zoro's clothes to play dress-up. Perona lends him her skirts and tells him not to stretch them out. He does not find this as amusing as her.

One night after training, they're all eating dinner together. It's become habit. (It's been habit for nearly two years now.)

Perona chews her lip, hands clenched alongside her bowl. There is a great weight inside her chest, like a locked bird; in one fell swoop, she sets it free. She announces, "I don't want to go back to Thriller Bark."

Zoro blinks at her. "Then don't."

Mihawk sips his soup. "Indeed."

Always so simple for these louts.

Candlelight glows over the cauldron of pumpkin soup. Perona and Zoro had argued about how much salt to put in, and Mihawk had rescued it as best he could with the herbs and spices. This was, of course, after he and Zoro competed in pumpkin-carving, and dinner preparation had to be put on hold so all three could admire the spooky flicker of the jack-o-lanterns.

Perona looks up, meets their eyes from across the table.

"Okay," she says.

* * *

They moonbathe together on top of the castle, Perona in her moth-eaten funeral dress and Zoro in all his new bandages. She has a glass of red wine in her hand and he's nursing a bottle of cold sake. (Mihawk's wine cellars are always well-stocked, probably due to vampire magic.)

They don't do this very often, but it's nice when they do. Normally he's the one listening to her talk—about whatever, the new recipes she wants to try out, how her lovely black roses are doing, the haunted specters in the castle she's conversing with. Zoro's a good listener when he's not falling asleep with his loud snores. But tonight's different. He tells her about Kuina.

Perona blurts out, "Your sister?"

"No," Zoro says.

She settles back, happy.

"Not like Nami or Robin."

Perona feels a bit homicidal suddenly. She's glad she has her shades on, and curls her arms tightly over her chest, glaring up at the stars. She only has a faint recollection of those two on Thriller Bark. Absalom's almost-bride had orange hair and stole her clothes ( _and had the audacity to look cute in them_ ), and the tall one had a dark, gothic aura that Perona might've respected on a better night. She feels a pang in her chest. Envy. How loathsome.

Zoro continues, oblivious to her internal seething. "Kuina was a friend. She died when we were young. She was a better swordsman than me, a better fighter. If she were still alive, she'd be sitting here next to you. Not me."

Perona gets it now. After two years of watching him spit blood, she's caught a glimpse of that great _Why_. Kuina. Maybe after this, she thinks, she'll tell him about her parents, why Moria-sama still means so much to her. Maybe, maybe not. Zoro is not particularly fond of sentimentality, which honestly is a great relief. They're both here now, and whatever events led up to it doesn't matter as much as the present, in Perona's opinion. She's never been one for sentimentality, either.

He is quiet for a moment. Then, "Do you think a woman can be the world's greatest swordsman?"

"What a stupid question," Perona snorts, lifting her shades over her head to frown at him. There's a darkness on his face, and not the cemetery-and-spooks darkness that she likes. This isn't the fun kind. "It's not like that would matter if you defeat Mihawk. Unless the next _next_ greatest swordsman is a girl, and she kills you, in which case I see the appeal."

"Guess so."

But he sounds so sad and annoying that Perona reaches over and smacks his arm. "I think if she were alive right now, she'd kick your ass."

For a moment, the darkness washes away. Zoro laughs, approving. "Yeah. I think so too."

She nods with the authority of a self-proclaimed big sis in a one-sided sibling relationship, and flips her shades back down, basking in the moon gloom. Zoro stretches out his arms, laces his hands behind his head. It is a good silence.

"Though," Zoro adds, "I already have you."

Perona hopes it's too dark to see her cheeks color. If her eyes water, it's only because she's staring hard at the too-bright shine of the moon. She bites her lip so her voice can't betray her, and then smacks him again. Zoro yelps.

(Perhaps not so one-sided after all.)

* * *

The morning of his departure comes with little fanfare.

Perona is already up, floating around the tall castle spires, watching the sun rise between stark-black trees. She fixes her top hat and listens to the ravens screech in mutinous concord and tells herself she can do this.

Bearie and Beary are piling provisions onto Mihawk's coffin-boat, which she'll navigate to Sabaody with. Zoro, after all, would get so lost he'd sail right to the One Piece itself and their whole stupid crew would be down one idiot mosshead. The little bears throw in food and blankets and stuffed animals for company. Perona approves, then goes off to find the swordsman she's supposed to be delivering.

He comes tramping down the stairs with a single bag slung over his shoulder, his swords, a new coat. Perona stops, looking between the two swordsmen, expecting something a dramatic farewell to cap off their truly bizarre two years together.

"You're still here, boy?" Mihawk leans against the heavy oak door, shoving it open with his boot. "Get out already."

"That's it?" Perona gapes. "No 'kids grow up so fast'? No 'I'll miss you, take care'?"

"The New World will be unlike anything you've faced before," Mihawk continues with nary a pause. "You could spend years there, honing your skills, and yet I still doubt it'll be enough time for you to exceed me."

"The next time we meet, only one of us will be left standing," Zoro promises.

Mihawk chuckles darkly. "I look forward to that day, Roronoa."

"Well, you two are either about to kill each other or rip each other's clothes off, and I've woken up too early to care," Perona proclaims, stalking outside.

* * *

Mihawk's coffin-boat is quite nice for sailing. Comfy, even. Very aesthetic.

Perona examines the vivre card on her palm and sets a course to Sabaody Archipelago. They run into a few marines and pirates along the way, but they all balk at seeing the stark-black coffin with its green ghost lights, knowing which vile Warlord it belongs to. They make it to the soap-bubble mangroves right on time, on the day Straw Hat Luffy told his crew to reunite.

And Roronoa Zoro returns home.

It ends faster than she thought it would. His crew is here, and they're being chased by marines, and there's no time for hellos or goodbyes or anything in between when adventure and fame and One Piece are waiting, and she's a pirate too so she _gets_ it, but—

"I guess that's that," Zoro says. He pats her on the shoulder, as thanks for the past two years.

Her eyes prick with tears. _Why do you always have to be so emotionally constipated?_ she wants to yell after him, huffing and snarling and punching the air. She holds her tongue, though, because she's frightened it might come out as, _When are you coming back?_ Stupid, stupid. The tiger has left the nest. Now all that's left is to watch him blaze as a meteor in the night sky, a bloody constellation of defeated warriors behind him.

"Hey!" Perona calls, and bites the inside of her cheek. _Will you miss me?_ "Don't eat all the onigiri at once."

With a grin on that stupid one-eyed face, Zoro waves at her and descends into the ocean with his family.

And just like that, Perona's alone again.

* * *

She does, actually, sail back to Thriller Bark.

This is not how it's supposed to go in the stories. The beautiful, morose heroine is supposed to float off into her happy ending, a dismal sunset, cobwebs and black rose petals scattered in her wake. She's supposed to leave all her dead memories behind.

But Perona goes to the ruins of Thriller Bark and finds Bearsy's corpse, no more shadow to animate him anymore. No one's left. Not one zombie, not one member of her family. (Her family, her _family?_ She settled for _that_ as her family? Yes, yes, she did, and she wants to puke. Did they even care enough to look for her? No, of course not. She won't look for them, either.)

Mihawk's coffin-boat comes washing up the shores of Kuraigana Island and Perona flies out.

She floats through the castle, singing her ghostly song. She keeps expecting to see Zoro come barreling out from the gloom, clutching his latest wound and gruffly asking her to bandage him up again. Or asking her what's for breakfast as he comes trooping up the stairs, finished with his five hundred morning push-ups. Or yelling, _Oi, Perona! Thank god! I swear, this place is a fuckin' maze!_ She waits for the joke. _A ghost princess and an angry swordsman sit down to dinner made by the Warlord Dracule Mihawk…_ She waits to feel herself laughing. It never comes.

Perona finally touches down in the parlor, clutching the big, flopping Bearsy to her chest. Mihawk is reading on his armchair. He has poured two cups of tea.

Silent, she sits down on the opposite squishy chair, one lined with black and pink details. She has no idea where he dug it up or why he put it in the parlor, only that it's set in the perfect spot to moongaze out the window, with room enough behind it for a boy to practice his kendo.

On the side table with her teacup are three origami creatures. A paper ghost, vampire bat, and tiger. The ghost has a little crown on her. The bat looks perpetually annoyed. The tiger is in between the two of them, crudely drawn stripes in ashy-grey lead pencil.

_Will you miss me?_

_Yes_ , comes the answer to her unasked question.

Perona picks up the paper tiger and finds herself crying. It's surprising. She stifles herself as best she can. For two years she's known this would be coming... and yet.

"He had a place to go back to," Mihawk says. "Sometimes this is just what happens."

"And—and if the next time the three of us meet, one of you will die?"

"Yes. Sometimes that happens, too."

"But—but— _but I hate it_!" The cry bursts from Perona's lips. The windows shatter, Mini Hollows tearing them apart. Maybe they had never been a family. Maybe they were just people who occasionally did family-like things together. Is there a difference? She doesn't know; all she's sure of is that she doesn't want them to die. It'd be so terrifically unfair. She's only just started to figure out what family means.

"I didn't expect you to be redecorating so soon," Mihawk says dryly, toeing some of the glass that's fallen on the carpet.

"I wish I could stop time. I wish I could just—make it all go back to the way it was."

Mihawk simply hums and closes his eyes. "If the seasons stopped changing, you would eventually run out of dead leaves to weave into crowns. The night is even more beautiful against the harshness of the day."

"Ugh!" she snaps with an unquestionably juvenile roll of her eyes, mascara dribbling everywhere. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. Doesn't mean I have to like it. Are you going to kick me out?" She starts to fret. He doesn't need her around, really. Not with Zoro gone. Nobody to bandage up.

"It is quiet now," Mihawk states, matter-of-fact. "It will only get quieter if you go."

It's not an answer, but she'll take it. Perona curls her legs up on the chair and looks out the window. Framed by dark tattered curtains is the field, where the Humandrills are sneakily eating some of the tomatoes they're growing. That's alright, there's enough to go around.

She rubs her fingers against the calluses on her palms, her hands which have toiled and worked the fields, which have sewn clothes and cooked food and given her a life she once scoffed and turned her nose up at. A life she never would've experienced if she stayed on Thriller Bark, in her hidden bedroom, cloistered by zombies and the stench of the rotting men she used to call brothers.

"The pumpkins will be in season soon," Perona remarks, and surprises herself again. It feels like something worth looking forward to.

"Yes. Good time for pumpkin soup."

She sniffles. "I broke all the windows," she says, and somewhere in there is an apology.

"Well," Mihawk replies gravely, "I like a breeze."

Perona wipes her face on her wrists and sets the paper tiger—a little warped and damp with tears—back on the table, between the ghost princess and the mean-looking vampire bat. Right where he belongs, should he ever want to visit home again. His _other_ home.

Mihawk sits across from her, reading his book. Beary and Bearie are sleeping in the spot of moonlight on the rug. Perona hugs Bearsy with one arm and sips her cup of tea with the other. That is what Kuraigana Island is: a place to leave, a place to come back to, a place to grow up a little and keep safe your memories of it. For always she will have these two years.

Should she ever meet Bartholomew Kuma again, she will thank him with all her heart.

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> alt ending scene:
> 
> perona, getting comfortable with bearsy: so, mihawk, what's this i've been hearing about you and red-haired shanks?
> 
> mihawk: *loud tea-spitting noise*

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Accidental Child Acquisition and Other Adventures in Piracy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28841094) by [Souless_Robot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Souless_Robot/pseuds/Souless_Robot)




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